The Huldra
by ThexyMallory
Summary: "I cannot show you the future right now Professor. It is not what the fates wish you to see." He felt like some sort of spell had been placed on him, endangering his well being. The room was still shrouded in silence and when she spoke again, gentle as she tried to be with her deep voice, her words rang like thunder. "Forgive me for this sir." *Please Review* *Posted for Opinions*


They were late, but not so late to cause worry. He scratched his crocked nose and took a slow sip from his glass of brandy hoping it would help to warm him. There was an elegant clock on the wall above one of his bookcases ticking softly into the quiet room. Its face showed ten minutes past eight pm. The wind was blowing rather hard causing the snow to pack up against his office window but the weather was of no concern to him. Dumbledore sat down his glass and glanced at the phoenix aggressively pruning its feathers. In his mind he somehow knew that his loyal bird was sensing the nervousness of his mind. This arranged meeting was sure to be his last hope.

A green flash lit up the room briefly and was preceded by heavy coughing and the shuffling of two sets of feet.

"Ah Albus, do forgive our tardiness. Paper work seems to be never ending these days."

The voice belonged to a plump woman in a rich royal blue dress that reached her ankles. She busied herself dusting off the soot that had clung to her as she stepped out of the fireplace. She coughed once more and took several paces into the room, her heels clicking loudly against the stone floor as she moved. Dumbledore smiled softly and shook the woman's outstretched hand in greeting.

"Not to worry miss Bagnold, I am happy to hold your company, tardy or not."

"Please Albus, call me Millicent. We have known each other long enough now. No need for formalities here." She said, not unkindly.

Millicent Bagnold was an employee of the Ministry of Magic. She was head of the International Statue of Wizard Secrecy and was well on her way to becoming the next Minister of Magic if she continued to play her cards correctly. Her face was very round and despite the crow's feet growing around her eyes she still had a youthful smile. She gave a small squeak when she remembered why she was standing in his office and turned away from him to gesture at the second visitor in the room. It was a youthful woman, perhaps twenty by the look of her. She wore natural colors of cotton and leather that clashed deeply with the bright hues miss Bagnold was wearing. She stood with excellent posture as she observed the headmasters office, a look of slight wonder hung in her dark eyes.

"Albus, this here is your, er, your applicant! Yes!" She turned back to face him and in a low mumbling voice she continued under her breath, "I am afraid there was no other replies for the position but I still must insist you conduct a proper interview regardless. I of course will be sitting in. It is procedure, you know, in these sorts of situations."

The other woman was tall with unusually long brunette hair. She had it woven into intricate braids that fell down her back. Her movements were fluid and she blinked rather slowly at him as she bowed her head in hello. She stood straight again with as much grace as trained dancer. Albus immediately felt there was something unusual about this woman. Something in her eyes seemed wild but her posture and her movement were controlled. The mixture felt confusing and he couldn't quite place what made him suspicious of her. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw miss Bagnold shiver slightly. He set his thoughts aside and began to greet the stranger.

"Ah." He exclaimed with a twinkle in his eye. "You must be miss Solveig, thank you for agreeing to travel to my office tonight." He spoke to her with a tone of true sincerity causing her to smile slightly.

"It's 'AY-rah' 'SOL-vey' sir. The g in my name makes the sound of your y." Her voice was deep but silky and her accent was hardly noticeable. Dumbledore felt himself go pink at the sound of his mistake.

"Forgive me dear. I fluently speak a handful of languages but I am afraid Norwegian is not one of them. Please do not hold my embarrassing mistake against me, Eira. Now, to get to business, please ladies take a seat, make yourselves comfortable. May I offer either of you a brandy?" They took their seats in the plush chairs facing the headmaster's desk without any fuss. Eira politely declined his offer of brandy whilst Millicent happily agreed to one. Dumbledore waved his wand and conjured a glass and bottle of brandy from seemingly nothing, poured the amber liquid into the vessel and handed it to the plump woman before taking his seat in front of them. He looked over his spectacles at the two women, first at Millicent Bagnold gingerly sipping from her glass. She notably scooted her chair an inch or two away from the Norwegian woman. Dumbledore made no comment on her movement as Eira didn't seem to have noticed.

"The people from your Ministry informed me of your situation. I am very sorry for the loss of your colleague sir." Eira Solveig spoke with genuine sincerity. "May I ask-" She trailed off. Millicent visibly shook again and swallowed a rather large gulp of her brandy, spilling a bit down her chin. Eira clearly noticed this time but made no move to react to her. Dumbledore took a breath of air in through his nose before he spoke to her. He would be honest. There would be no sugar coating this to either of them, though it was likely Millicent already knew.

"You wish to know what happened to Professor Mopsus." Eira nodded once. "I am afraid he was murdered, most likely by a group of dark wizards calling themselves 'Death Eaters'. It seems that our dear Divination professor was found hanging by his ankles from a light post outside a pub in a muggle neighborhood. His attackers, I am told, had mutilated his face."

Millicent rubbed her eyes with her free hand and gasped down the last of her beverage with quivering lips. She then clasped her fingers tightly around the arms of her chair and did her best to keep herself gathered. Eira never flinched at a single word. Her eyes glued themselves to his face and she sat very still as she listened to his words.

"It is to my understanding that my colleague happened to be in the wrong place that night. If you are not aware of this by now miss Solveig, there is a dark wizard roaming around this country. He is proving to be a very ambitious enemy with an extreme set of predigest against certain people. Muggles especially, and the witches and wizards who associate with them ." He looked directly at Eira over his half moon glasses studying her. Her face was a sea of calm but her eyes were wild again. When she didn't speak he continued.

"Do you understand why I am telling you this miss Solveig? The people of the wizarding world are afraid. In these dark times they fear for the lives of both themselves and their families. When the news reached me that a teacher from my staff had been marred for no more than being seen in a muggle town it was made very clear to me that these dark wizards will stop at nothing to see the world bend to its views."

"Do you see me as a member of the wizarding community Professor?" She spoke so gently in her deep voice that it startled him for a moment. Millicent Bagnold removed her hand from her eyes and looked from Dumbledore to Eira, an expression of curiosity and worry on her plump face. She began to nervously smooth the non existing wrinkles from her blue dress as Eira spoke to her.

"You did not tell him, did you Madam Bagnold?"

"Tell what miss Solveig?" Dumbledore asked. Eira blinked slowly at Millicent waiting for her to speak.

"Well," started Millicent in a bit of a flustered tone, "Miss Solveig here... well, she is not a witch Albus." She ended her sentence on a more confident note then when she started. Eira gave another slow blink and looked straight at Dumbledore again. The headmaster felt slight confusion run through him.

"You claim you are not a witch miss Solveig?" His question was more to verify what they had just told him. Both women nodded yes in unison.

"But you are in fact a seer as I have been informed? This is, after all, a formal interview for the position of the schools Divination Professor." Again both women nodded, but Millicent looked towards Eira to elaborate further.

"I am not classified as a witch Professor Dumbledore sir," She paused briefly to find her words, "because I am not classified as a human being." The headmasters eyebrows rose in curious surprise at her. This news was not what he was expecting to hear tonight but it was curious none the less. He smiled with intrigue as miss Bagnold began to speak.

"Albus, as you know, the Ministry was, unfortunately, unable to find any willing replacements for the teaching position locally. They all seemed to be, er, fearful of coming here after word got out of the, er, murder." She swallowed hard on the word 'murder' and licked her lips before continuing.

"We reached out to our friends abroad for help on the matter. The Scandinavian Ministry of Magic was kind enough to help us fill the job position for you by granting miss Solveig here leave to come and teach at your school with your approval first of course. She is indeed qualified," Millicent paused looking uncomfortable again and shifted in her chair so that she was leaning as far away from the Norwegian woman as she could possible become without appearing rude. "Her gift as a seer is legitimate, but there is the small issue of her, er, classification as a, as a-" She began to trip over her words. Millicent glanced at Eira hoping to find a way to put her thoughts into verbal speech and was much relieved when Eira spoke for her.

"Classification as an intelligent magical creature, sir." Eira was as calm as ever, appearing as if she was discussing the wind blowing the snow outside. Millicent cleared her throat and relaxed her shoulders by a fraction. The headmaster smiled at them over his glasses. Eira clearly looked nothing but human to him and for a brief moment he almost brushed off their claim as a hoax but decided against it. For now he would conduct the interview without questioning their tale.

"I see." Said Dumbledore with twinkling eyes. "Human or creature aside for the moment, this is still an interview. I am afraid I must set aside my curiosity and ask you to demonstrate your divining capabilities. Can you predict something for me miss Solveig? Read my aura perhaps? Whatever you see fit my dear."

Not to his surprise, all of the color drained from Millicent Bagnold's face. This moment clearly was what was making her uncomfortable through out their meeting. To her credit she did not squirm in her seat any further then she had since she sat down. Dumbledore did not draw any attention to her, instead, he gazed at Eira with her wild eyes and calm features. She blinked slowly at him and placed her palms facing up on his desk. Her hands were small and bore the calluses of hard labor upon them. He almost chuckled. They were not smooth as he expected them to be. He calmly placed his hands over hers. He took note of how warm they were as she stroked the back of his hand with her thumbs. No one spoke for several breaths. Dumbledore felt himself becoming slightly impatient. Divinations was not a subject he had ever been fond of but he would humor this girl anyway. He needed a teacher to at least finish the year. It had crossed his mind more than once that he should do away with the subject entirely. He tried to forget his wandering thoughts and come back to the present. Eira still had not spoken but her eyes stayed fixed on him. Vaguely he began to notice things around him quieting down. He saw the snow hitting the glass of the window but he could not hear the wind moving it. The clock on the wall behind their heads stopped emitting its ticking sound but he could see the hands were still moving. He finally noticed that there was not one bit of buzzing in his ears. The room seemed to be sapped of all sound and when she finally spoke it was startling. His eyes snapped to her and she held his full attention.

"I cannot show you the future right now Professor. It is not what the fates wish you to see." Her dark eyes were hypnotizing. He felt like some sort of spell had been placed on him that was endangering his well being. He ignored this feeling and gave into his curiosity. The room was still shrouded in silence and when she spoke again, gentle as she tried to be with her deep voice, her words rang like thunder.

"Forgive me for this sir."

She squeezed his hands so tightly it hurt him but he did not show her that. He felt something in her eyes pulling him in and as he met her gaze full on he felt the world stop moving. He no longer existed but his mind was still there. Slowly he began to notice things. First sounds. He heard the crunch of snow and laughing voices.

"Happy New Year!" people called. Dumbledore felt his vision returning to him but where he was standing he could not tell. It was as if his eyes were everywhere. He was seeing from every angle at once. He could see a street and shops, some lit up, others already closed for the night. He watched as a man walked out of a pub smiling and waving goodbye to the patrons still inside.

"Are you sure you don't need help getting home sir?"

"Oh don't you fuss over me girl! I have been blind long enough to figure out how to get around without my eyes. You worry over yours and your own now alright!"

Dumbledore felt his stomach drop, if he still had a stomach at this point that is. The voice of the man belonged to his Hogwarts colleague, Professor Mopsus. He wanted to call out to him but found he had no voice.

"If you say so sir" said the bar maid. "Happy New Year to ya' then." She patted his shoulder and returned to her pub, flipping the neon open sign off as she went. Here and there a patron scuttled off presumably to their homes. The streets were quiet and the pubs were closing. Dumbledore watched Mopsus inhale and exhale the cool night air before removing his cane from under his arm and giving it a good hard smack on the ground with a chuckle. He started humming softly to himself in an awful tune that seemed to echo off the buildings as he walked. He did not get far as a noise rang through the air followed by dark laughter, causing Mopsus to spin around in alarm. Although he could not see them with his blind eyes he could hear the cackling of the men surrounding him. Three Death Eaters in black cloaks blocked Mopsus' path to safety. One of the Death Eaters was singing a song for the New Year as he hexed the door to the muggle pub, locking it with a spell. Dumbledore wanted nothing more than to jump to the aid of the people in the bar. All he could do was watch in his disembodied state.

"I know this bloke." One of them spoke.

"Yeah. I think I've seen his face in the prophet" Said the second Death Eater. The wizard that had locked the pub door was laughing at one of the patrons inside. A muggle man stood at the door politely knocked on the glass asking the Death Eater to kindly unlock it for him. The Death Eater feigned deafness and continued singing his song as he walked away from the door. The muggle man became angry and began jiggling the handle in attempt to escape. The bar maid appeared at his side with a set of keys and tried to unlock the door so her remaining customers could leave. Her attempts were in vein as the door had been magically sealed

"Oy! Wilkes, quit having a laugh and come look at this! I believe this bloke here is a wizard." The first Death Eater called to the singing man, whom was dancing around the street lamp nearest him. Wilkes stopped his singing and made his way over to the others.

"You bet your lily-arses I'm a wizard." Mopsus spat as he pulled out his wand. Laughter rolled through the group of Death Eaters. This man was no threat to them. He was old and blind. Dumbledore cringed. In his mind he knew what he was about to witness. He didn't have any desire to see this.

"This one's a teacher up at Hogwarts." Wilkes spoke. He waved his hands in front of Mopsus' face causing the other two to giggle. At the sound of their laughter Mopsus pointed his wand and sent out a hex causing the first Death Eaters face to explode in horrible red boils. He screamed in pain and fell backwards into a trash bin while grasping at his face. Mopsus swung wildly with his can hitting Wilkes in the knees with a sharp crack.

"Expelliarmus!"

Mopsus' wand flew from his hand. He still wielded his cane and held it in front of him like a sword, swinging it wildly.

"Ya' won't take me easily you filthy cowards! There is still fight in me!" Mopsus cried.

The Death Eater that had disarmed him stepped around the old man's flailing cane and sent a sharp kick to the back of his knees. Mopsus fell hard against the cobbled stone street. He wheezed and grasped for his cane trying to find it with his outstretched fingers. Wilkes now on his feet again kicked the cane away from the old man's reach and spat on him. He then called to the Death Eater with the cursed face.

"Rosier, stop your whining you bloody imbecile. Stand up!" Rosier had managed to roll out of the trash bin and began to rub snow onto his swollen face. Some of the lesions had begun to ooze yellow pus and it was dripping down his cheeks. He was moaning and cursing but eventually stood up with the other two.

"Make the old man pay Avery." Rosier hissed. Avery wordlessly flicked his wand and ropes shot out, twining themselves around Mopsus' ankles. Avery then lifted his wand causing the ropes to drag Mopsus into the air hanging him from the top of the lamp post Wilkes was dancing around moments earlier. Behind the Death Eaters the muggles still trapped in the pub let out muffled cries from behind the glass door. Mopsus grunted as his head bumped against the cold metal of the lamp post. His face became increasingly red as gravity made the blood go to his head. He hung there upside down, blind, wandless, surrounded by Death Eaters. Dumbledore ached to help him but was just as powerless as poor Mopsus was in that moment. The blind man wheezed and grunted until his breaths turned into laughter. He was still laughing when he spoke to them.

"Killing an old blind man." He continued to chuckle. "I'll bet the dark lord will be awful proud of you three." His chuckles began to die down in his throat and he let out a loud cough. Rosier walked up to him. They were nearly nose to nose.

"Blind as you are old man, I guess you won't mind if I take those foggy eyes of yours." Rosier then shoved his wand into the socket of Mopsus left eye and worked it until it came out into his hand. He then did the same to the right eye and grinned through all the screaming. Dumbledore could not tell if the screaming was coming from Mopsus, the horrified Muggles, or from his own internal vioce. The pained screams were devastatingly loud but over top of it came shrill laughter. Wilkes jumped boldly back into his song.

"Joy to the world, the lord is come" And with a flourish he sent a curse into the pub causing all the liquor on the shelves to explode. The Muggles screamed and pounded on the door desperately trying to break it down.

"Let earth, receive, her king!" Another curse shot out multiplying the liquor over and over flooding the floor of the pub. Mopsus was still screaming in agony behind the Death Eaters.

"Let every heart, prepare him room" He continued his singing until the pub was flooded to the ceiling. The Muggles inside were slowly drowning and all he could do was laugh. Mopsus continued to holler behind him, his despair drowning out the last of his song. Avery had had enough by then. He lifted his wand and said the words. Green light flooded Dumbledore's eyes and suddenly he was back in his office.

"No!" He hadn't realized he was calling out through the vision. He yanked his hands from Eira's and placed one over his heaving chest. Millicent looked alarmed by his reaction. The color was still missing from her cheeks and she was chewing on her bottom lip. He took a breath in from his mouth and out his nose attempting to calm himself. As his breathing regulated again he locked eyes with Eira. She removed her hands from his desk and gently placed them back in her lap. The expression on her face was the same calm as before sharing her vision.

"That," he exasperated "is quite a gift Eira Solveig." She closed her eyes for a moment, considering his comment.

"A gift is all it is headmaster sir." She spoke slowly in her silky voice. "What I just showed you, has been in my mind for three days. When I was contacted about your job offer this vision came along with it. I have already shared it with Madam Bagnold." The three of them sat quietly. The sounds of the wind and the clock had returned to the room making the silence more bearable.

"Sir, I might as well be honest with you." She looked Dumbledore in the eye. Fawkes cooed softly from his perch. The sound eased away a bit of the tension they were all feeling.

"It is unlikely that I will be able to teach the students of Hogwarts to see into the future as I can. Seers are more often born then made you see. However," She turned her lips in a ghost of a smile "there are things that I can teach them. Things you can still sort into the category of divination, things that will prepare them for the world outside of these walls. I am willing to share some of my knowledge with your student's professor, if you will have me." He didn't reply immediately to her. Miss Bagnold spoke up quietly before Dumbledore.

"There is also the matter of her classification Albus. If you wish to agree with this arranged employment, you must keep her nature a secret from your students. No one can know what she is. It would be for the security of both miss Solveig and your students." The two women looked at him patiently.

"When can you begin Eira?"

She smiled at him, blinked slowly, and said "Immediately sir."


End file.
